Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

TEN people a week in Britain are hospitalised from playing Wii games.

The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers. Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.

Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: “There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis. “I’ve seen many patients aged between eight and 13 — and I’ve seen adults.

“It’s possible that Wii-itus may lead to rheumatism and arthritis in later life. Patients often have inflammation of the shoulder or wrist.” Others have a ligament injury dubbed Wii-knee which some have blamed on the popular Wii-Fit game.

Dr Mukerjee said: “People who are double-jointed are most likely to suffer from Wii-knee — and in extreme cases the knee cap can be dislocated or can even pop out.” Treatment includes cortisone injections and anti-inflammatory painkillers. Recovery takes up to three months.

OMG how dangerous! A 100% increase (from 5 to 10 people per country per week)! You could have rheumatism and arthritis in later life! Wii-knee! Cortisone injections! Painkillers! Those are addicting! I never knew… I never knew… First we find out that playing games was addicting, and now we find out that the injuries suffered through play could be life-altering! And we find this out right before Christmas! Just think of all those torture machines that are already wrapped and under the tree! Oh the humanity…

Just last month, the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine published joint guidelines for physical activity and health. They suggested that 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days a week is necessary to “promote and maintain health.” What they didn’t say, though, was that more physical activity will lead us to lose weight. Indeed, the best they could say about the relationship between fat and exercise was this: “It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling.” In other words, despite half a century of efforts to prove otherwise, scientists still can’t say that exercise will help keep off the pounds.

Ah hah! I knew it all along! Of course, there is the whole thing about…

We may increase our overall fitness; we may live longer, perhaps by reducing our risk of heart disease or diabetes; we’ll probably feel better about ourselves. But there’s no reason to think that we will lose any significant amount of weight, and little reason to think we will prevent ourselves from gaining it.